


Shots In The Dark

by electrahearts



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha!Isaac, Alternate Universe - Canon, Bisexual Character, F/M, Hunter!Stiles, M/M, Sexual Content, Slow Build, basically no one knows what they're doing except the sheriff, but they still don't like each other, kind of, so they flail around a lot and accidentally become something like friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrahearts/pseuds/electrahearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is just barely sixteen when he follows his father into the woods and stumbles upon half of a dead body. Then it's just a slide down a slippery slope into a strange kind of Wonderland where everyone he knows is a hot, snarky werewolf, and he's supposed to keep them in line and stop people from dying. Easy enough really, except that everyone wants Scott in their pack (and he doesn't like any of them), Stiles continually fails at being a hunter, and he has a persistent thing for werewolves with sharp cheekbones. Also, Isaac Lahey won't stop being irritating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shots In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> So, this started as a drabble to tag onto a gifset (http://ohmccalls.tumblr.com/post/58076312820) and ended up becoming a monster that took over my fic writing life. This is the first long fic I've done for a very long time, so I'm just getting back into the swing of things. Bear with me :)
> 
> This is that one Stisaac AU where Isaac is an alpha who doesn't know what he's doing but wears leather because then he can pretend that Derek gives good advice, and Stiles is a hunter who just wants to protect Scott and not die. And maybe get laid, because he's a horny teenager.
> 
> A million thanks to the-girl-with-a-pentagram-tattoo for inspiring this in the first place, and to Blue, because although she doesn't watch Teen Wolf (YET) she puts up with my rambling and helps me to keep going.
> 
> No sexual content in this chapter! I'll add to the tags and warn for each individual chapter.
> 
> BACKSTORY TIME: Claudia Stilinski (nee Argent) was heavily involved in the hunting side of things and brought the Sheriff (here called John because why not?) into the fold. She's a distant cousin to Chris. When she died, the Sheriff stayed involved, feeling like he owed it to his wife.
> 
> The Hale fire still happened; Derek, Laura and Cora survived, and Peter killed Laura. The surviving Hales didn't leave Beacon Hills, because they didn't want to remove Cora from the last normal things in her life, so Cora's in her last year of school, though she's not terribly interested in other people.

Stiles is just barely sixteen when he follows his father into the woods and stumbles upon half of a dead body.

He screeches reflexively, his voice going higher than it had since his voice finally dropped, and he forgets for a minute that he’s not actually supposed to be out here. Shit.

He claps a hand over his mouth a second too late. There’s the sound of cracking twigs behind him, and he breathes a sigh of relief when the person that emerges _isn’t_ his father.

“Son, what are you _doing_ out here?” his dad says, and he turns around to come face to face with the one person he was trying to avoid. So close, and yet so far. He glances back at the person who had come through the trees, discovering a thin, grim face framed by a black collar pulled up far too high. The woman reminds him a little of Jackson.

“What are _you_ doing out here?” The thought occurs to him just quickly enough that he thinks he might not have to answer his father’s question, but to no avail; his father looks entirely unimpressed, and he thinks grumpily that it’s the middle of the night, he’s not exactly at the top of his game.

“John!” A distant voice interrupts them, sounding vaguely familiar, but his dad doesn’t move a muscle.

“John!” they say again, more urgent now, and his dad reluctantly tears his eyes away, looking in the direction of the voice.

“John? We found her!” Found who? Are they talking about the body?

“Stay here,” his dad says firmly, walking past Stiles in the direction of the body he had found. Well, half a body, anyway. He figures that he probably doesn’t mean it. He knows Stiles better than most people, and no way would he stay behind while something interesting is going on.

He moves to follow, finally remembering to check his phone. Scott’s around here somewhere, probably lost, because even their illicit drinking takes place in the outskirts of the woods, not in the middle of it. He wishes he could blame Scott for his close proximity to a decomposing body, but he _was_ the one who called Scott at nearly midnight and told him they were following his father into said woods. It wasn’t his fault they’d gotten separated, though - that was all Scott. What kind of person doesn’t pee before going to bed? Watching Scott pee in the woods hadn’t seemed nearly as interesting as figuring out where his father was and what he was doing, and then there’d been the dead person just fricking _lying there_ , so yeah. Not his fault.

“Stiles,” the woman warns, a steel core to her voice, and he stumbles over a tree root in his fright. He had forgotten she was there, to be honest, because Scott and figuring out why none of the people accompanying his father on his search for a dead body appear to work for the Sheriff are his priority.  There wasn’t a single uniform in sight, or a police car, or anyone he’s met when he’s gone to the Sheriff’s office with a salad from Walmart.

And this woman knows his name? _Creepy_.

“I’ll just be over here. Waiting. Languishing. Definitely not going anywhere near-“

The woman’s phone rings. She shoots a parting glare at him and turns away, saying quietly, “Allison.”

Well, that settles that. He walks as quickly and quietly as he can in the direction his dad went in, only breaking a dozen twigs and one big enough to technically be a branch. He calls that a success.

His dad is crouched over the body, and he stops short. He has no desire to see that again, the first time was bad enough. He opts to hide behind a tree instead, ducking low so that the shrubbery at its base is just tall enough to cover his head, and he’s close enough that he can make out what they’re saying without too much effort.

“We think it was another group of hunters, though we don’t know who. The Argents-“

“I can vouch for the Argents,” his dad interrupts, looking away down at the body again.

“But they-“

“The Argents know the code. They know we don’t kill anyone unless we have to, and Laura was the best alpha the Hale pack could have hoped for.”

“She was a _werewolf_ , you know they-“

“ _Werewolf_?”

He glances around on instinct before he realises that he’s the guy yelling about werewolves in the middle of the woods. By the time he thinks to look at his father to see if he was heard, his dad is already looking straight at him.

“Nyargh!” he splutters, something hauling him up from where he’s still crouched behind the tree; he just hopes it isn’t one of the drug-taking psychopaths his dad is apparently hanging out with, because _werewolves_?

“I asked you to keep an eye on him,” his father says, looking at the woman clutching the back of his hoodie, but he seems more resigned than angry. “Come on, Stiles, let’s go home.”

“Dad!” he says, shaking off the woman’s hand. “ _Werewolves_?”

“Let’s go home, Stiles,” his dad says firmly, and when he opens his mouth to push the issue, his father _sighs_ , and looks so incredibly exhausted that he no longer has the heart. He’ll have to deal with the whole ‘my father spends his nights wandering around in the woods with a bunch of growly dudes with weapons in order to find fictional creatures and deliver justice upon them’ thing another day.

\--

The first day of school always sucks, but it sucks even more when you’ve been ignored by your father for three days because neither of you wants to bring up the fact that said father is clearly going insane. _Werewolves_ , what in the hell?

Scott comments more than once on the fact that he’s distant and quiet, especially for him. He only picks one fight with Harris in chemistry and completely ignores a particularly smirky Jackson, and eventually Scott gives up and starts talking to the brunette sitting in front of him.

Allison, apparently. The same Allison the woman was talking to?

He starts listening in on their conversation, but Scott flirting awkwardly and Allison falling for it doesn’t reveal much about werewolves... and he can’t believe that he’s entertaining the idea that werewolves are real.

Werewolves are a childhood thing. Like when he used to consume books faster than Cheetos, and he and Scott would swap novels and wish they lived in worlds where vampires and witches and werewolves were. Scott had moved on eventually, to more intellectual things that required more thought than picking out which of the cast would turn out to be the witch hiding from prosecution, but Stiles hadn’t. Hell, two weeks ago he had drunk more coffee than was a good idea, especially with his medication, and the way he could smell pretty much everything had prompted him to waste more than a second speculating whether he was turning into a werewolf.

This was ridiculous. Had his dad even _said_ werewolf? Maybe he said ‘where wolf’, as in where wolves are?

Alright, that’s a bit of a stretch, he can admit that. There are no wolves in California.

“Stiles?” Scott asks, and he looks up from where he’s been mindlessly scribbling throughout his freakout.

“We’re going to lunch, you coming?” he continues. We? Allison smiles from where she’s standing next to Scott, hand braced gently on the desk beside Stiles’.

“Yeah, just give me a minute, dude,” he responds, quickly packing up his stuff and standing. The movement forces Scott closer to Allison, and his best friend smiles goofily at the contact.

Oh no. He knows that smile - that’s Scott’s ‘I’m going to fall way too hard, way too quickly and get my heart broken’ smile. At least Allison seems to like him back, what with all the smiling and the touching. There’s hope that this won’t turn out like the Samantha Incident.

\--

He messes around on his laptop the minute he gets home, trying to find something about werewolves that’s more legitimate than sexy Halloween costumes and speculation about whether the Twilight werewolves knot. Knotting?

A quick Google search and a slightly disturbing video reveal something that Stiles never wants to think about again, much less think about going anywhere near his ass, and he thinks he should get up and check that his window is locked.

His dad comes into his bedroom at exactly 12 minutes to midnight, and he’s about to remind him that his shift starts early tomorrow when he remembers.

“Werewolves?” he asks, and he’s a little afraid of the answer.

“Werewolves,” his dad sighs, and _shit_. His dad wouldn’t lie to him.

“Is any of this true?” He clicks on one tab (not the knotting one) that talks about pack hierarchies, but his dad doesn’t even look at it.

“Werewolves can control their transformations, they don’t just turn at the full moon, they can be born or bitten, and silver doesn’t harm them. That’s a legend - Argents harm them,” his dad rattles off. Argent means silver in French, he thinks.

“You mean, like Allison Argent?”

“Yeah, Chris’ daughter.”

He doesn’t know who Chris is, and he doesn’t care. He stares at his hands, square nails and skinny fingers, his thoughts whirring a mile a minute, and he struggles until one clarifies.

“Mom?” he asks, voice slightly hoarse, because he and his father have spoken about Mom exactly three times since her death, and every time has ended in tears for both of them. He wants to know if she knew about all this.

“It’s part of why I didn’t want to tell you, son,” his dad says, and he might not say _this is how she died_ , but he hears it anyway. Her funeral was a closed casket ceremony; he never saw his mother’s body.

“Oh.”

They’re both quiet for a long time. Stiles can hear his breath picking up, his heartbeat going just fast enough that he starts doing the breathing exercises his therapist recommended seven years ago, and they help just enough that when he speaks his voice sounds almost normal.

“I’d like a list of all the known werewolves and the methods I can use to get away from them,” he says.

“They aren’t all bad,” his dad says, almost gently, like he thinks Stiles is going to break. He’s not going to. The existence of werewolves is still less life changing than being told your mother has cancer and is going to die, though he supposes that that wasn’t actually true. It still hurts, though.

“Still,” he say, and his dad nods.

“Will you teach me?”

“You shouldn’t have to-“

“I want to,” he says, and he does. He’s not the type to know that something’s going on and not throw himself headfirst into it.

His dad grins, and he might be completely nuts and getting himself into something he’ll regret, but he and his dad have had a conversation involving Mom without either of them crying or drinking. He calls that progress.

\--

The next day, a mountain lion kills a couple living in a trailer in the woods. It takes one look at his his dad’s face to figure out that it was no mountain lion. The alpha’s killing _civilians_ now, and that’s a whole new ballgame.

Their training session that night lasts twice as long as usual, and there’s an arrow stuck in the back door that not even their combined strength can get out. Stiles decides to leave it there, as a momento.

\--

It’s three weeks later and he’s tracking the alpha, who has apparently decided that mauling random hikers is a good use of their time - spoiler: it isn’t - when he meets Derek Hale for the first time.

“This is private property,” a voice says from far too close to where he’s crouched over faint imprints in a pile of leaves, and he curses under his breath as he whips around.

“We’re in the middle of the woods, dude, I’m pretty sure not even the government has bothered to say they own this,” he responds finally, waving an arm to encompass the trees around them.

“ _I_ own it, not the government. Get out,” says the stubbled stranger, and _wow,_ there must be something in the water around here, because he’s pretty sure he could slice bread with those cheekbones. He must move slightly, or maybe the wind picks up, because the stranger suddenly stiffens and glares even more, if that’s possible, but it’s the brief flash of supernaturally bright blue that reminds him of the wolfsbane in his pocket. _Werewolf._

“Hunter,” the stranger snaps, and there’s something about his voice that jolts his memory. Cheekbones, growly, seems like they hate everyone, werewolf - _Cora._ He’s just met Derek Hale.

“So, been killing anyone lately?” he blurts, in lieu of _I sometimes have unfairly hot dreams about your sister_ , and also because he’s a professional hunter, alright, and he’s going to find the werewolf he’s after.

“No. Have you?”

“Not lately, but I can always rectify that.”

“You can try.”

“Ooh, big bad wolf’s out to play,” he teases, stopping short when Derek’s flash blue again. Right, backing off. The pendant around his neck weighs heavy on his chest, and he’s grateful for it. He always seems to forget it’s even there until he needs something to reign his thoughts back to where they should be.

“If I said ‘someone’s been murdering hikers and I’m ninety-eight percent sure they’re a werewolf’, would you know what I’m talking about?” he asks. Derek doesn’t say anything, which, really. _Rude_. Also suspicious, because wouldn’t a non-murderous werewolf want to prove that they aren’t, y’know, murdering people?

“Right, of course not,” he mutters, looking around for a way out. His hand slips into his pocket, fingering the packet of wolfsbane his dad made him carry for emergencies, though in retrospect, he should’ve brought more than a knife and a packet of emergency wolfsbane if he was trying to hunt down a werewolf. Particularly one who was killing people.

“Derek!” Stiles’ head whips around in almost perfect time with Derek’s, and at any other moment he’d spend time thinking about how strange that is, because generally that doesn’t happen unless you’ve known someone for a long time, but there’s a curly-haired guy walking towards them. Well, walking isn’t exactly the right word, more ‘stalking’, but whatever. Potato, potahto.

“Isaac,” Derek seethes, and for the first time his eyes stay blue. Isaac has the same annoying familiarity of most of the supernaturally inclined, like he’s met them but not thought too much about them until they’ve tried to kill him or are helping him kill something else. He also has the same ridiculously sharp cheekbones as pretty much every other inhabitant of Beacon Hills, and he wastes a moment wondering how long it will take for whatever is obviously in the water to work on him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Isaac growls, and Stiles snorts to himself. At least he isn’t the only one finding it hard to get information out of Derek Hale. He’s about to suggest that Isaac try Cora, because she’s more likely to tell you whatever it is out of pity, even if so far it’s only been for math homework and the occasional lead on an omega, but then there’s teeth coming out, and claws, and _Stiles is so out of here._

“Alright, good talk Derek, nice to meet you Isaac, I’ll be going now,” he babbles in one quick breath, backing away as quickly as he can until he’s out of sight, before he turns tail and runs back to where he parked the Jeep.

\--

It only occurs to him later that that means Isaac’s a werewolf too, which wrinkles his brain a little. He only really knows Isaac as the kid who sits on the other end of the bench with him at every lacrosse game, though recently he’s been lapping Scott and Stiles the same as everyone else. Gah, _werewolves_.

It makes sense, though, because Isaac would be pretty attractive to an alpha: only child, wouldn’t be missed much if he died from the bite, untapped amounts of douche potential... Oh!

Jackson and Isaac are friends now. At a normal high school, losers like Isaac (and, well, Stiles and Scott) would barely be able to get in the vicinity of someone popular, let alone become best friends with them overnight. That just doesn’t happen, particularly not with Jackson, douche extraordinaire. And it’s not Lydia’s influence; she’s occupied with Allison. He can’t believe he didn’t notice before.

So either Isaac has something over Jackson, which is pretty unlikely, or they’re pack. And Derek’s not the alpha, although his other sister was before she died, and he _is_ the oldest. Cora’s not the alpha, and Peter’s comatose, so he’s not doing anything alpha-like. That leaves Isaac.

Isaac, who until recently was all alone, who is now friends with Jackson and apparently owns a leather jacket. Isaac, who clearly doesn’t get along with Derek, who Cora doesn’t talk to in school, who no longer works at the graveyard. Isaac, who must’ve been turned and then killed Laura for the power. Maybe one wasn’t enough? He knows that power can go to people’s heads, has seen enough TV and watched enough movies to know that for sure. If Willow can get addicted to power, why can’t Isaac?

Isaac, the killer. Isaac, the alpha.

Isaac, in his chem. class.

 _Shit_.

 “Dad, Dad!” he calls, running down the stairs as fast as possible, taking them two at a time. “Dad, I know who the alpha is!”

He bursts through the doors at top speed, his sleeve catching on the doorhandle as he goes. He wrestles with that until the doorhandle abruptly lets go of his sleeve, sending him spinning and skidding to a stop directly in front of an entirely unimpressed Chris Argent standing in his kitchen. He pauses, but only for a second. He has lives to save, alright? He’s like fricking Dean Winchester now: saving people, hunting things. He probably has enough plaid to pull it off, though he might need voice lessons to get his to go that deep.

“I know who the alpha is,” he repeats, one hand braced on his knee.

“Really?” Argent asks, and he can practically hear the sneer. “So do we.”

“Really?” He stops, blinks. “So are we going over to the Lahey’s now? Does he still even live there?”

The grim looking woman from the woods looks down her nose at him. Argent seems even less impressed than before, which is actually quite a feat. Stiles would be awed, except he hates Argent ever since his idea of teaching Stiles how to shoot was to hand him a gun and tell him he was doing everything wrong.

“I highly doubt that Peter Hale has ever lived at the Lahey house, so no, we’re not going there,” the woman says, and Stiles stills.

“Did you say Peter _Hale_? The coma guy?”

His words are drowned out by a clamour at the back door. It bursts open moments later, though it’s more ‘falls to the ground with half the paint missing’ than ‘bursts’. A dead body slides to the floor, its head propped up gruesomely on the edge of the door, blood dripping like a broken tap to the kitchen tile.

The room is entirely silent. _Dead_ silent, even. He worries about himself, sometimes, that seeing a handful of dead bodies has desensitised him to the point that he makes jokes about them. His dad says his mom used to do the same thing.

His dad comes down the stairs, then, the case of wolfsbane bullets clutched tightly in his hand.

“What was that?” he asks, and his eyes shoot straight to Stiles. They exchange nods, and the stillness breaks. People clamour to answer his father, to clean up the body, to pack up the weapons even faster, and to check every step with Argent, who stands in the middle of the chaos, clearly unperturbed. He forgets, sometimes, that his father has only done this for eight years, on and off and subject to the whims of his son, and Argent literally grew up with this.

“Alright, we’re moving out in ten minutes! Check the perimeters, make sure he isn’t still here, then get to your cars as quickly and quietly as possible,” Argent says, and Stiles might be a little afraid of him, but he can appreciate tactics when he sees them.

“Head for the preserve, headlights off once you’re off the road,” his dad adds, no less authoritative than Argent, and Stiles can’t help his pride. His dad grabs the most enormous bag of wolfsbane he’s ever seen, the smell giving it away before he even sees inside it, and he’s about to suggest that they’ll need more if his dad wants to ring the preserve when his dad stops beside him.

“Son, stay here,” he says quietly, handing Stiles the bag. He opens his mouth to protest, but isn’t given even a sliver of a chance. “I know you think you can take care of yourself, but Hale literally escaped from the hospital an hour ago. We can’t take any chances. Stay here, ring the house.”

Yeah, not happening.

“Fine, if I must.” He’s not letting his dad put himself in danger without him, no matter how good Argent is. “You can’t leave me behind all the time, you know,” he can’t resist adding.

“ _Stay here.”_

He affixes a hopefully non-suspicious expression to his face and nods, watching his dad walk out the back door, slamming it shut behind him.

Stiles follows the moment his dad steps into Argent’s SUV, grabbing a handgun from a kitchen drawer on his way out the door. He shuts it quietly behind him and sneaks over to the driveway, his Jeep still parked on the curb. It takes a few tries to get the driver’s door to open - it’s old, okay - and he’s thoroughly tired of jiggling the key in the lock when it makes a distinctive clicking noise and unlocks.

He looks up to check that the SUV is still in sight and grins; they’ve even got their headlights on, how considerate. He keeps his eyes on the SUV as he hauls himself into the Jeep, reaching out automatically to flick on the lights.

“Hello, Stiles.”

“Wharghle?!” he babbles in shock, pressing himself up against the door and feeling for the handle. It’s okay, he’s trained for this, he knows what he’s doing.

The figure sitting in the backseat shifts forward, bringing their face into the light, and he rolls his eyes so hard it feels like it wouldn’t take much for them to fall out completely. Of course it’s her.

The woman from the woods smiles tightly, her severe lips pressed together. “Going somewhere?”

“Yeah, to Scott’s, I wanna keep him safe. There’s a murderous alpha wandering around, did you know?” He’s almost proud when her expression flickers. He wonders if she’s thinking about Allison, and feels guilty for not thinking about protecting Scott before now. Hell, if he didn’t need to look after his dad so badly he probably would be on his way to Scott’s right now.

Her expression settles again. He shivers. Hunter women are scary, alright, it’s not just him. He’s seen the way Kate Argent looks when she’s on a rampage, and if that’s not the scariest thing he’s ever seen, it’s probably only because of that one horror movie he and Scott watched when they were twelve and thought they were badass.

“T-that’s a werewolf taser,” he points out, feeling for the handle with a new sense of urgency. His hoodie gets in the way of his fumbling hands, and he curses himself for wearing so many layers, making a mental note to stop that right the fuck now. He’d probably save on laundry, too.

“Not a werewolf,” he adds, fingers finally curling around the handle.

“Don’t worry, it’s on the lowest setting,” she promises, and he _pulls_ , the door opening with a squeak behind him. He tumbles to the road, propelled by the momentum he hadn’t accounted for, and he can just hear the sound of the woman’s sigh above the pounding of his heartbeat. He tries to stand, and his ankle protests so strongly he figures he better listen to it, if he ever wants to play a lacrosse game.

He looks up at the Jeep. The window rolls down, revealing the woman’s face and the taser pointing straight at him. Right, he’d forgotten about that. He tries to get up again, and he just about has both feet under him, albeit painfully, when his whole body shudders and he feels like he’s on fire. He falls to the road again and feels the hard, pebbled surface of it slam into his face, and ouch, that’s going to bruise.

He’s pretty thankful when he blacks out, to be honest.

\--

He wakes up to his dad’s face peering at him where he’s sprawled out on the couch. Someone’s put a blanket over him, which was nice of them, except at some point it’s made its way into his mouth and all he can smell is some kind of flowery perfume. The woman, then. If he wasn’t feeling so sore, he’d probably respect her for sticking to her guns, even if the end result was him with a sore ankle and what feels like mild bruising on half his face. But then, he’s always liked women like that, so it’s pretty much a non-issue. He wonders if she’d be willing to give him tasering lessons.

“I told you not to follow us.” His dad’s voice hurts a little. It’s not that it’s overly loud, but he sounds pained. Stiles can understand that his dad just wanted to keep him safe; it’s just that he wanted to do the same for the only real family he has left. The Argents don’t quite count.

“Did you really think I’d listen?”

His dad harrumphs, looking towards the doorway. “It was messy. You’re lucky Victoria was there, to stop you getting caught up in it.” He makes to get up, still watching something beyond the doorway that Stiles can’t quite see.

“Dad?” he asks, and his dad stops. His vision swims again; he’s pretty sure _Victoria_ didn’t need to taser him quite so hard.

“Yes, son?”

“He’s dead, right?” He sounds childish, even to his ears, the kindergartener asking about the monster under the bed.

“He’s dead,” his dad promises. Thank God.

\--

He keeps seeing Isaac around school, features fixed in a permanent smirk as he exchanges eyebrow raises with Jackson and glares more than a little in Scott’s direction. He’s not sure why the last keeps happening, because as far as he knows Scott and Isaac have never spoken, but whatever. Stranger things have happened - Lydia _looked_ at him across the hall last week.

“Why does Isaac keep looking at you like that?” he asks anyway, because if Isaac’s sniffing around for info on the Argents or thinking about pulling something with Scott to get close to Stiles and Allison, he has to protect Scott. Heh, sniffing around.

“Oh, nothing. You know Jackson doesn’t like me, it’s probably that,” Scott replies, and Stiles’ eyes narrow automatically. Werewolves may be natural lie detectors, but Stiles Stilinski has hunter genes, and that’s almost as good. Scott’s _lying_ , and that’s a weird damn thing.

Scott has lied to Stiles about exactly three things, that he knows about: how bad his asthma is, why his dad walked out, and who let his dad have extra onion rings on his birthday. He messes with him a lot, sure, and it took Stiles an embarrassingly long time to figure out when Scott’s just joking versus when he’s hiding something, and this is definitely the second.

“Jackson’s a dick, everyone knows that,” Stiles settles on as an answer, and Scott looks satisfied. They both go back to their respective lunches, Stiles making short work of his; but when he looks up, he stares right into Isaac’s eyes.

Something weirder than usual is going on.

\--

One problem with Jackson being a dick is that 1) he’s a dick, 2) he’s a waste of space, and 3) it’s difficult to tell when there’s something actually wrong with him and when he’s just being an asshole for the hell of it. As a general rule, Stiles pays as little attention to Jackson as possible, barring the occasional sidelong glances at his arms when he’s bored and horny in class, because he might be the devil re-incarnated but he’s clearly been sipping the Beacon Hills Kool-Aid.

That doesn’t stop him from literally kicking himself when Isaac, Jackson, and a statuesque blonde stalk into the cafeteria together, wearing matching leather jackets and predatory gazes. _Great_.

“Is that Erica?” he asks Scott, but gets silence for a response. It’s not much of one, and when he tilts his head to look more closely at his best friend, he’s surprised he didn’t notice the tense clench of his hands before. He’s clutching the tray so hard Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if he broke it, though the lack of muscle might hinder that a little.

The blonde turns in their direction and winks, and yeah, that’s Erica. He sighs internally, the kind of sigh that wouldn’t be out of place on Mr Harris, because of course. Erica is just Derek’s type: lonely, vulnerable, and just desperate enough that she won’t question Derek _too_ much. He gets that alphas need packs, but seriously, the biggest douche on the face of the earth and the epileptic?

\--

“You need to stop turning teenagers, Derek! First of all, I highly doubt you’ve told them everything before giving them the bite, and secondly, it’s pretty creepy. They’re _sixteen_ , Derek,” he reminds him.

“It’s not me,” Derek replies, and if Stiles didn’t know better, he would think he sounds kind of smug.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asks, entirely disbelieving.

“The alpha, the one turning your classmates. It’s not me.”

“Well, who is it then, if not the only werewolf in town who knows what he’s doing?” he asks, _now that Peter’s dead_ a silent addition.

Derek is completely silent, which really, he should have expected. Getting information out of Derek is like getting Lydia Martin’s attention; not only do you not expect it to happen, but when it does, it seems so unbelievable that it’s like it didn’t happen at all.

“Right, thanks for the help,” he says sarcastically, heading for the splintered piece of wood masquerading as the front door of the Hale house.

“It’s Isaac.”

“What?”

“The alpha, it’s Isaac Lahey,” Derek says with a smug grin, and Stiles never knows whether he wants to whack it off or kiss it off. It could go either way at this point, so to save himself from certain humiliation, he heads out the door, and doesn’t look back.

\--

He avoids Isaac for the next few days, which really doesn’t take much effort on his part, seeing as they’ve spoken a total of twice. He does make certain that they sit nowhere near him at lunch, though, because Isaac glaring at Scott is throwing him off, and he wants to talk to Cora before he touches the issue of a teenager being an alpha with a ten foot pole.

He does allow himself a little smug satisfaction for being right, though, because he had figured out that Isaac was an alpha. He dismisses the fact that he technically wasn’t an alpha at the time, nor was he the one they were looking for, but. Details.

Allison joins them at lunch on Thursday, which makes Scott grin so widely Stiles is a little worried for his facial muscles. He squashes down the tiny part of him leftover from seventh grade that’s still in love with Scott, because he’s honestly happy for his best friend and he made a conscious choice to put all that as far behind him as possible.

“So, are you excited for the game on Friday?” Allison asks, directing the question at both of them but keeping her eyes on Scott.

“Definitely. I think our bench misses us,” he jokes, taking a large bite of his apple.

“Actually dude, I’m, uh, I’m playing tomorrow,” Scott says.

Stiles swallows thickly, turning his head to assess Scott properly. The man may be his best friend, but he’s still not 100% sure when he’s messing with him.

“Since when?”

“Since Greenberg spilt coffee on Coach’s lap by accident and got banned from playing for two weeks,” Scott responds, Stiles wincing in reflex.

“Is that even legal?” An all too familiar voice asks, and Stiles wrenches his gaze away from his and Scott’s intense stare-off to stare in wonder as Lydia slides into the seat next to Allison.

What. The. Fuck.

“Since when has Coach cared about what’s legal?” Jackson asks, and Stiles feels the smile that had sprung onto his face, unbidden, start to dim. Danny follows suit, sitting down next to Stiles with a look of distaste Stiles can’t exactly blame him for, and Isaac takes the seat next to Danny, smirking at Scott. Scott glares back, and Stiles feels like he’s been thrown into a parallel universe.

Allison and Jackson get into an argument about whether Finstock telling Danny to play with a concussion was legal or not, Danny looking bemusedly at the two of them but not attempting to interfere.

Under cover of Lydia asking Jackson how he could have let Danny play (“What was I supposed to do about it?” “You’re the captain. I thought that meant something?”), Stiles looks across at Scott, who looks just as bewildered as he feels.

“Congrats, man. I’m happy for you,” he says, and he means it. They exchange nods, and even if this is a parallel world where Lydia Martin of all people is sitting across the table from him, at least he and Scott still have each other’s backs.

He picks up his apple again, taking a bite as his other hand fumbles for his phone in his pocket. When he looks up from it again, Isaac’s staring at him, looking thoughtful. He’s not sure why, but he’s not a fan of that look. Probably because he’s a werewolf and could eat him, actually; that’s a sensible thing to be afraid of.

“Problem?” he asks, almost mouthing the words, because he knows Isaac can hear him.

Isaac just raises an eyebrow,

“So, I heard you’re playing on Friday, Scott,” Isaac says, cutting across Scott’s low voiced conversation with Allison. Maybe that accounts for Scott’s disgruntled expression when he looks at Isaac, because Stiles hardly ever sees him look like that.

“Yeah,” says Scott. Isaac smiles. It’s a dangerous, smug kind of smile he usually sees on Jackson - and Derek, actually, when he thinks he’s pulling something over on Stiles.

Scott turns back to Allison, and Isaac exchanges smug smiles with Jackson, who looks quite confused as to why they’re even here and why Isaac seems so determined to talk to Scott. It’s a look Stiles knows quite intimately, really, because it’s how his dad and Scott usually react to his schemes, and- He’s gonna stop himself right there, before he starts to actually feel some kind of weird solidarity with Jackson. Ugh.

Despite staring pretty steadfastly at the half-eaten apple in his hand, he can feel Isaac’s eyes on him; at least he’s not still trying to get into Scott’s pants, or whatever it is he’s trying to accomplish.

“I don’t know what you want with Scott, but if you hurt him, I will taser your little werewolf ass so fast you’ll see stars,” he promises darkly without looking up. He has a newfound appreciation for the art of tasering after his own run-in with it. Now he just has to convince Victoria to teach him.

\--

Scott lets himself in the back door when Stiles in the middle of figuring out the least sodium packed tv meal they have left in the freezer. He’s in the kitchen before Stiles has even closed the fridge, and is leaning against the kitchen doorway when Stiles turns around.

“You’re in a hurry,” he comments. Scott usually knocks on the front door and waits, even though he’s had a key since seventh grade.

“I wanna talk to you about something,” Scott says, a serious note in his voice that makes Stiles intensely curious.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he asks as casually as he can, pulling open a drawer and grabbing a pair of scissors to cut the plastic covering of his soup packet. He frowns when the scissors are completely covered in purple dust, and spends a good minute trying to figure out where it came from. He finally locates a bag at the back of the drawer that must have once contained wolfsbane, before something ripped open the packet with its teeth.

Great, first werewolves, now mice.

Scott’s gone completely quiet behind him, and he turns around, wolfsbane covered scissors still in hand, and-

Oh.

Scott’s eyes are a bright yellow and staring right at him, and if he shifts a little to the left he can see Scott’s hands - and yep, those are claws.

“So, werewolves, huh?” he blurts, and Scott practically collapses with relief.

“You know?” He pauses. “Wait, how do you know? You aren’t a werewolf, right? You don’t smell like one.”

“Nope,” Stiles replies, popping the ‘p’. “One hundred percent canine free.”

Scott looks confused, but the yellow eyes are gone, so score one for Stiles.

“We’re a hunter family, apparently,” he says by way of explanation.

“Like the Winchesters?” Scott asks, and god, he loves Scott. “That would explain the wolfsbane.”

“Not exactly like the Winchesters, because Dad won’t let me get a tattoo even though you never know when a demon will try to possess you, but close enough.”

There’s silence when he finishes, not quite awkward but definitely not in the realm of comfortable, and he takes the opportunity to wash the scissors and close the drawer. He doesn’t feel like poisoning his best friend today.

“So, Scotty,” he begins, turning off the tap and putting the scissors to one side. “How about we play some Halo and you can explain how you got turned into a deadly creature of the night?”

Scott grins, his whole face lighting up, and yep, they’re gonna be okay.

\--

Derek’s waiting inside his room when he gets home, stationed creepily behind his door like if he glares hard enough he’ll blend into the woodwork, which, no.

“Before you start with whatever life or death situation you inevitably want to bring to my attention because that’s how considerate you are, what do you know about Isaac?” he asks, talking quickly enough that Derek looks mildly shocked and also can’t get a word in, which was the point.

“Isaac’s the alpha.” Yep, the more time he spends with werewolves, the more convinced he is that the bite carries some kind of asshole gene along with the ones for lycanthropy. Scott must be some kind of mutation, which is why Scott is his favourite.

“Thank you, Sherlock, for your excellent deduction of things I already know.”

“He’s not very good at it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s a teenager who’s been a werewolf for less than six months and now constantly shows up asking me questions about how to deal with betas and hunters and whether anyone’s going to link him to his father’s death,” Derek tacks on grumpily. He reminds Stiles of Grumpy Cat, but less adorable and more bangable. Stiles doesn’t have many boundaries, but he wouldn’t have sex with a cat, that’s just disturbing.

“I thought it was ruled a mugging,” he points out, picking an elastic band off his desk and rolling it between his fingers. His dad hadn’t said anything about his dad being supernatural.

“It was Jackson, actually.”

“Isaac told Jackson to kill his father?”

Derek gives him a long, measured look. “No.”

“Then wha-“ Derek jumps out the window.

“You can’t do that, Derek, what the hell?” he yells after him, because if Derek’s gonna have supernatural hearing then he’s gonna take advantage of it, especially since he can’t hear it if Derek says anything back. That’s his favourite kind of conversation with Derek.

He stalks over to the window and slams it shut, which makes him feel marginally better. He doesn’t lock it, though.

He grabs his phone out of his bag, because seriously, what the hell? Jackson killed somebody because Isaac told him to, and that somebody was Isaac’s _father_? Why does no one tell him anything?

He scrolls through his contacts: Chris, Dad, Melissa, Scott... Lydia. _Lydia_. He only has her number from that one time Harley owed him a favour and managed to get her number in eighth grade; he just has to hope that she hasn’t changed her number since then. He wants to actually know what’s going on this time before he sends the hunters off to kill someone, because it was pretty embarrassing when he thought Isaac was Peter Hale.

She picks up within two rings.

“Hello?”

“Lydia, hi. I need to ask y-“

“Sorry, who’s this?”

“It’s Stiles, bu-“ She hangs up. He stares at the window and wonders whether he should lock it after all.

His phone rings in his hand, and he’s smiling to himself when he presses ‘answer’. Lydia’s too curious not to at least hear him out.

“What do you want?” God, even when she’s angry she’s hot.

“ _Stiles_?” Make that _especially_ she’s angry.

“I want to talk to you about Jackson.”

“If this is about McCall being co-captain...”

“It’s not, I promise. It’s more...” He has to take the risk. He needs answers, and no one can hide anything from Lydia for very long. “Supernatural,” he finishes.

She pauses. He can hear her breathing on the other end of the line.

“What do you want to know?” she asks simply, definitively, and if he didn’t need this information so badly and he wasn’t so sure that she’s psychic, he would totally do a victory dance. As it is, he does a very subtle fist pump.

“Did Isaac tell Jackson to kill his father?” he asks, then holds his breath.

“No.” She pauses, and he swears if she pulls a Derek he’ll attempt to climb through her window and demand answers. “It’s not like that.”

He listens carefully as she tells him about the last two weeks of summer: Jackson catching Isaac training, Isaac attempting to curry favour and explain why he has freaking claws by telling Jackson the truth. Jackson begging Peter to turn him. Jackson becoming a kanima, some kind of freaky lizard thing that latched onto Matt. He has to ask her to explain who Matt is; apparently he’s that kid who got shipped off to military school the day before school went back. Lydia sounds pretty proud when she says that, so he’s guessing she had a hand in it.

Jackson killing a mechanic for some kind of revenge scheme of Matt’s. Jackson killing Mr Lahey and waking up naked in Isaac’s bedroom. Isaac finding him and freaking out. Isaac confessing everything to Lydia when she had asked if Isaac knew where Jackson was, since he wasn’t answering his phone and he missed their date.

Lydia re-transforming Jackson with the power of love.

And wow, he’s surprised at how hard that hits.

“Well, you were busy this summer,” he says when she finishes, and he feels kind of breathless.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she says. “Are we done here?”

“We’re done,” he confirms, and she hangs up.

\--

Scott comes over for their regular Friday game night, and they’re midway through an epic round of Guitar Hero when Stiles brings up Isaac.

“So, Isaac’s trying to recruit you.”

“Yeah.”

“And?” he prods.

“He’s not gonna. I don’t-“ he breaks off, looking frustrated.

“Why don’t you wanna be part of his pack? Admittedly, two-thirds of his pack are assholes, but Dad says wolves are stronger with packs.” Actually, probably more than two-thirds, but he wants Scott to be safe, so he’ll downplay it.

“I don’t even wanna be a werewolf, Stiles, let alone part of a pack. I’ve got a girlfriend, I’m first line in lacrosse, and I got an A for my English paper the other day. Can’t that be enough?”

“I hear ya, buddy.” And he does, but- “What if some other freaky things tries to kill people. We’ve already had a murderous, vindictive alpha, and did you hear Jackson was a kanima? If you don’t have a pack, then-“

“Then you’ll protect me, right?” Scott says, and it’s not really a question. He’s grinning at Stiles like he already knows the answer, and really he does, because there’s only one he would give.

“Of course, dude. You know I’ve got your back,” he says. He just needs to tell his dad that Scott’s a werewolf so that none of the hunters kill him by accident.

He looks up at the screen and realises they’ve been destroyed, having completely forgotten about the game mid conversation. He clicks back to the menu.

“Do over?”

\--

Erica sits next to him in Chemistry, which is only notable in that she isn’t Scott. She was a decent partner for that English project last year, so Stiles figures he’ll just go with it, even if said English project had happened before the... _thing_. The corseted, red-lipstick wearing, Chanel handbag toting, werewolf shaped Erica _thing_. It’s fine. Totally fine. She won’t try to kill him in the middle of class.

Scott rushes in five minutes late and looking like he ran into a door, so Stiles figures he got caught up with Allison. He likes Allison, though in regular circumstances he would probably resent her a little for taking up so much of Scott’s time. As it is, when Scott’s distracted with Allison, he deals with the werewolf side of life, and besides, he and Allison are basically family, being hunters and all. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.

Erica doesn’t talk to him at all, which both does and doesn’t surprise him. On the one hand they had spoken about two collective sentences to each other when they worked on that project. On the other hand, she willingly spends time with Jackson and Isaac, neither of whom are particularly shy or quiet.

Well, Isaac had been, but he guesses there’s something about becoming a werewolf that makes you more of an asshole.

It starts with a light touch to his knee that he ignores, absorbed in measuring out the right amount of iodine so that Harris puts off his Daily Ridicule Of Stiles for a little while. Maybe he won’t get a detention for once.

It’s only when he can feel the drag of her hands as they make their way from his knee to his hip, brushing dangerously close to his dick, that he starts paying attention properly.

What.

Her hands linger on his upper thigh, digging in a little, and okay he’s kind of into that. He files it away for future reference and research, and thank you Erica for that, but he’s still not entirely sure what’s going on.

She makes it pretty obvious when he looks at her and she runs her tongue over her teeth, slightly disturbing her red, red lipstick.

Okay, so she won’t try to kill him in the middle of class, but she will apparently give him a hand job. Okay.

She runs her fingers along the top of his jeans, and he must make a sound because her hands stop moving for a second. When she starts moving again, her thumb brushes the top button of his slightly too tight jeans, and that it, he’s done, he’s out of here-

“Alright, time out!” he all but shrieks, banging his hand on the table. She moves her hand back to his knee, but doesn’t remove it entirely. _God_.

“Mr Stilinski, this is _Chemistry_. Kindly keep your sports references to the field. Or, in your case, the bench,” Harris says snootily, and God, Stiles hates him so much. _So_ much.

Erica runs a hand through her hair, smirking and looking entirely at ease. If he were a werewolf, he’d be able to smell the satisfaction.

“What was _that_?” he hisses, head turned towards the beaker but looking at Erica out of the corner of his eye.

“What can I say? There are some benefits to being part of a pack,” she says smugly.

Oh. This is about Scott.

“You can tell Isaac we’re not joining your pack,” he says pointedly, and turns back to the experiment. He’s not going to give Harris more reasons to hate him, since he comes up with enough on his own. He’s also not going to think about what just happened, because although he’s into it, Erica’s never tried to get him off in class before, and he’s not interested in being part of one of Isaac’s schemes.

“Are you sure?,” she says, sliding her hand further up his thigh, and nope, _nope_ , this isn’t fair, he’s a teenage virgin and he’s pretty sure Lydia’s been teaching Erica the pout she _knows_ makes stronger men than he fall to their knees.

The bell rings.

“See you in the cafeteria, Scott!” he practically yelps on his way out the door. He doesn’t feel guilty about sticking Erica with the clean up, because he can hear her and Isaac snickering as he leaves. Scott better stick up for him.

He heads for the bathroom, desperately needing to pee and hoping that his semi-hard on will go down by the time he finishes, even if peeing with it is kinda painful.

Is it possible to have a werewolf kink? Or maybe it’s just that every werewolf he’s met has been ridiculously, unfairly hot. Even Scott. Even _Jackson_. He’s pretty sure he would have come across it somewhere if it was a thing, but then, the internet is a vast place with several hidden corners that he has to restrain himself from poking around him. It’s not that he isn’t interested in said corners, it’s just that he would rather not scar himself for life for the sake of curiosity. He can be sensible. He’d learned his lesson after that one porn video with the needles.

There’s no one in the bathroom when he gets there, since he had high tailed it out of the classroom pretty quickly, which is awesome. He always feels weird when there’s other people in the bathroom, like they’re listening to him pee.

 “So, Erica tells me you aren’t convinced?”

“Wraah!” Freakin’ werewolves.

He can see Isaac smirking at him in the mirror.

“Don’t you know bathroom etiquette?” he demands, hastily zipping his jeans back up, because he is _not_ having this conversation (again) with his dick out. That’s just not happening.

Isaac ignores him, which, well. Rude.

“Was Erica _your_ idea?” he asks, because if Isaac’s going to ignore him then he’ll ignore the fact that Isaac asked him a question. He has to know, anyway; he doesn’t want to stick a dubcon label on the last half hour.

Isaac rolls his eyes.

“Nah, she just wanted to flirt with you a little, get you on her side. Or her front, if you preferred.”

“She’s enjoying this a lot, isn’t she?”

“Why shouldn’t she? You know what it’s like, being invisible.” And now she isn’t. He gets that.

Isaac pauses.

“Why won’t you join us? We’re supposed to be a pack. Wolves are stronger in packs, Derek said.”

“Yeah, my dad said the same.”

“Then why not? If you’re an omega, you’re weak.”

“It’s not up to me. Scott’s the werewolf, he’s the one you want.”

“Do you wanna be a werewolf? Join the pack, get stronger, faster, have Lydia talk to you? Take no shit from anyone?”

He wonders if that’s why Isaac became a werewolf, to feel like no one would dare tread on him anymore.

“I’m good, thanks. I think it might be against the code to become the creature you’re supposed to be containing,” he snarks.

“’Containing’?” Isaac snorts. “You call what you did to Peter ‘containing’?”

“Peter killed people, and I can count on one hand the amount of people who’ll miss him. Even Derek said he needed to be put six feet under, and Peter was his uncle.”

Isaac’s silent. Stiles washes his hands, because hygiene is important and he desperately needs something to cover the silence.

“You should really think about joining us. Both of you,” Isaac says. Stiles turns off the tap, looks in the mirror. The space beside him is empty, like no one was ever there.

Freakin’ werewolves.

\--

The day of The Lacrosse Game, which has extreme importance because Scott’s actually playing this time, dawns freezing cold for the tail end of summer, and Stiles curses having to cover up his ‘I support single moms’ shirt. Melissa always talks to him during the game if they can get seats close enough to the bench, and she always smiles when she sees it.

He says as much to Scott, who stares at him like _he’s_ the creature of the night who randomly grows claws and fangs.

“Dude, my mom hates that shirt.”

“ _I_ hate that shirt,” Lydia announces, glaring at a hapless freshman who tries to sit at their lunch table. There aren’t any other seats, but Stiles suspects she quite literally couldn’t care less.

“Hey Jackson,” she greets, kissing him hello. Erica whistles under her breath and says something to Isaac, sitting next to her, who smirks. Sometimes Stiles really wishes he had supernatural hearing, but then he remembers that would come with supernatural smell, and he really doesn’t want to have to avoid the boys locker room for the rest of his high school career. He still has to muster up the courage as it is.

“What do you mean, you hate my shirt?” he demands, cutting across their quickly developing makeout session. He’s getting over Lydia, slowly but surely, because he can’t compete with something straight out of the Beauty and the Beast. That doesn’t mean he wants to see them kiss all the time.

“I mean, Stiles,” she starts, eyeballing him like he’s an irritating freshman, “that your shirt is offensive to single mothers by implying that all of them have to use their bodies in order to earn enough money to look after their children properly in this patriarchal society where women never make the same amount of money as men and so must work twice as hard. Sometimes, Stiles, those women have to resort to pole dancing or stripping or sex work so that they can feed their children, and that is an admirable thing to do. Or maybe they just like it. Either way, they shouldn’t be mocked or misrepresented by your $10 t-shirt.”

Everyone is utterly silent. Allison has a giant grin on her face, unlike Jackson, who’s staring at Lydia in shock.

“My mom took this women’s studies class last year,” Lydia says, inspecting her nails. Erica’s frowning, but she doesn’t say anything.

“What am I supposed to do with my shirt, then?”

“Get rid of it,” Lydia says, waving a perfectly manicured hand as if it’s of no consequence to her, but she’s watching him closely like she’ll scratch his face if he dares keep it.

Maybe it’s the fact that a part of him will always try to impress Lydia Martin, or that he just automatically does what she says, but he isn’t even thinking as he reaches down to unzip his hoodie and tug it off. He elbows Danny in the side and disregards his annoyed look, though he does stand up in order to pull off the offending shirt and toss it in the direction of the bin. It misses by miles, but that’s why he has a werewolf for a best friend, as well as several people who seem to have taken it upon themselves to become part of his social circle. Besides, it’s the principle of the thing.

Erica whistles again, loud and piercing, making the surrounding tables glance over on reflex, though Stiles sees her ignore all of them in favour of exchanging glances with Isaac. Who is staring. At him. Because he’s shirtless in the middle of the cafeteria.

Fuck, he should’ve thought this through.

“I’ll lend you a shirt,” Scott says, taking pity on him, though he’s clearly laughing on the inside. Stiles forgives him, because they’re best friends, and once Scott’s pants ripped and Stiles laughed for two days straight, so now they’re kind of even.

“Hey, Boyd!” Erica yells out suddenly, and all the occupants of their table look up as Boyd makes his way over. Erica stands and sits on Isaac’s lap to free up a chair for Boyd, who gives them all a derisive look as he sits down. He lingers on Stiles, which he wishes was some kind of compliment to his physique, but is more likely Boyd questioning why he’s not wearing a shirt.

He hopes Danny and Boyd never become close friends, because they would inevitably spend all their time scheming with Lydia about how best to eye roll at lesser beings and out-sass everyone in the vicinity.

He pulls his hoodie back on and zips it up as far as it’ll go; he’s a little cold, but it’ll do until he can grab a spare shirt from Scott’s locker. Thank god for mothers who teach their sons to be overly prepared.

“Nice abs, Stilinski,” Jackson mocks. Stiles is staring at the table, so he only hears the sound of a dull thud as someone hits him.

“Shut up, Jackson. Some of us enjoyed the view,” Erica says, Isaac making a noise that might be agreement or might be him telling Erica to get off his lap, Stiles isn’t sure.

“Mmm,” Lydia hums, sounding distant, and she’s probably just agreeing to piss off Jackson, but it makes him feel molten inside all the same.

“Definitely,” Allison says, sounding wicked, and there’s a flurry of movement next to him that means Scott’s either dragged her onto his lap or bitten her neck, and Allison’s getting into it. Great. He’s surrounded by horny teenagers and he’s the only one not getting any. He’d suggest to Erica that they do a reluctant-allies-with-benefits thing, but she was eyeballing Boyd pretty hard earlier, so he figures that’s out.

“Scott, Scott!” Allison giggles, and he lets his head fall onto the table with a thunk. Ugh.

\--

The game itself passes like every other game has: Stiles warms the bench and practically leaps off it whenever Finstock says a word starting with S, Jackson scores more than half the goals, and Danny’s muscles bulge as he leaps to defend to goal. Melissa quirks an eyebrow and he grins back, waving at his dad sitting next to her. It’s nice that his dad still comes to every game, even though he never plays.

The only difference is that Scott isn’t on the bench next to him, and neither is Isaac. Greenberg is the only person between him and Finstock, and Stiles is almost grateful for Finstock’s weird obsession with Greenberg for keeping the attention off him as he mutter things under his breath to Scott, who always grins at him when he’s said something particularly hilarious.

Isaac and Jackson look at him too, sometimes, but mostly it’s just eyerolling, so Stiles doesn’t worry about it. The day Jackson thinks he’s funny is the day Stiles gets an actual date, not just bubble bath kisses and Erica feeling him up with Harris looking on. Eurgh, that sounds wrong. Harris being there? Is there any way to make Harris not sound like someone Stiles is interested in having there while he has sex? Chris Argent, maybe, but no Mr Harris. The whole ho yay thing does not work for them.

Stiles can hear Erica’s voice above everyone else’s when Isaac scores a goal with seconds left on the clock, pulling off Scott’s pass fluidly and flicking it into the goal. When he looks back at the stands, Erica and Lydia are grinning in contrast to Boyd looking stoic, but even as he watches Boyd exchanges a friendly head nod with someone on the field.

Scott tackles him to the ground out of nowhere - seriously, what is it with werewolves are scaring him for no reason? - and he groans when his head hits the edge of the bench behind him.

“Scott!”

“Stiles! We won, and I played, did you see that shot?”

“Careful, don’t want to sound like Jackson,” he teases, though his grin says loud and clear how proud he is of Scott.

“Please, we all know Scott would sell a kidney to be me,” Jackson says, coming up behind Scott with an arm wrapped around Lydia.

“Wouldn’t everyone?” Danny says sardonically, and Isaac smirks at Jackson.

It throws Stiles for a second, how utterly weird this whole thing is, that these people are involved in his life and he doesn’t particularly feel like throwing them out of it. He doesn’t like Jackson, and Isaac isn’t exactly his best friend, and he doesn’t really know much about any of the others except Lydia. Lydia is the best of them, but there was never any doubt about that.

But Scott adores Allison, and with Allison comes Lydia, and with Lydia comes everyone else. He doesn’t doubt that Isaac is still trying to recruit Scott, or that any of the betas will continue their alpha’s mission, but he’ll let Scott take the lead in this.

It’s strange. He always used to be the leader of the two of them, but now Stiles just wants to hold everything together. He’ll let Scott make the plans. He’d probably be good at it.

\--

Because Stiles didn’t actually play, everyone except him and Greenberg storm into the showers, discarding clothing and slamming lockers on their haste to get to wherever lacrosse players go after the game.

Stiles sits on the bench near his locker and waits. He’s had enough of being shirtless around other people for the day.

Scott passes him with a giant grin, and they exchange fist bumps after Scott shoves his stuff back into his locker. Scott’s grinning like Samantha West agreed to date him, so he’s not surprised when Scott asks if he can beg off their regular game night tonight.

“Hot date?”

“Yeah. Allison says the cinema’s doing a horror double feature.”

“Don’t stay out too late, young man,” Stiles teases.

“Yes, Mom.” Scott rolls his eyes. Stiles will never get over the affection written all over his face.

“Tomorrow, then? Text me before you come over and remind me to bring your shirt, dude,” he says, before jerking his head toward the door, where Allison waits.

“Hi Stiles.”

“Hey Allison. Enjoy the movies. Buy two lots of popcorn, Scott’s a hog,” he advises. She grins.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she promises.

Stiles is alone for a moment, listening to the sounds of showers being turned off and people filtering out of the locker room. He thinks he might risk the showers now that all the people likely to laugh at him have left, when Isaac sits down next to him.

“Good game,” he greets. He feels tired all of a sudden.

“You too.” Isaac sounds tired as well, but that makes sense. He was running around and getting knocked over by athletes roughly the size and shape of bridge trolls.

“I didn’t even play,” he snorts. He isn’t bitter, not exactly, but he hasn’t given up hoping for a sudden outbreak of influenza amongst the team members he doesn’t care about.

“Good job warming the bench, then.”

“All part of the service,” he counters.

“Hmmm.” He’s silent for a minute. “Have you changed your mind yet?”

“About what? Whether i want to have this conversation for the fourth time in a week and a half? Because I haven’t changed my mind about that.”

“Derek says-“

“ _Derek_ ,” he pronounces carefully, “doesn’t kno-“

“Why won’t you just join the pack?” Isaac asks heatedly.

“Are you ever going to let this go?” he demands, because he might be letting Scott make the choices but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to defend them.

“I just don’t want anyone else to die!” Isaac shouts back, and wow that was honest, and Greenberg can probably hear them. Okay, wow, Isaac is really close, this locker is really uncomfortable to be pressed against, Isaac needs to start using chapstick because his lips are pretty cracked but his eyes look really blue, and now they’re turning red and-

Oh.

Isaac’s kissing him. It’s actually kind of nice, if confusing and out of the blue, and wow, Stiles did not expect to be kissing anyone today. He might have avoiding that garlic bread he had for lunch if he had known.

“See ya, Stiles,” Isaac says, a little more bashfully than Stiles has come to expect from the leather-clad asshole in his Chemistry class, but Stiles kind of likes it. But then, he’d probably like anything right now; he thinks he might be going into shock. And he memorised the symptoms of shock and half a dozen other things when he was twelve, so he knows what he’s talking about.

He heads out the door, and Stiles is left alone in the darkening change room, the sound of Greenberg’s shower the only noise other than his breathing.

Holy Batman. Isaac Lahey just _kissed_ him.

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: slight ableist language, dubious consent in terms of one character touching another character without permission, and one character kissing another character without warning/permission. Frank discussions of death and sex.


End file.
